Dengue in the news

5 November 2008

There is an article on Dengue in the NY Times this week. It’s short on science, but brings home the impact of the disease (which is rare in the US and Europe) in developing countries. The article focuses on the disease in Bangkok, where the United States Army maintains its largest overseas research laboratory. The US Army is interested in this disease because it affects soldiers in tropical areas.

According to the article, two different groups are working on dengue virus vaccines in Bangkok: the US Army laboratory, and a second which is a joint effort by Sanofi-Aventis and a Thai University. There is no information at all in the article on these vaccines, save for the information that they might be available in 5-7 years.

We discussed Dengue on episode #3 of our podcast, “This Week in Virology”. You can listen to that episode here, or subscribe in iTunes.